Phishing has grown as an attack method because it works. A case in point: If you were paying attention to the stock market, you know that the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped very quickly earlier this week after there was a tweet from the Associated Press saying that bombs had gone off at the White House. This was because the Twitter account of one of the AP staffers had been hacked. The lesser known part of this story was that the AP staffer had fallen for a spear phishing scheme.

As SC Magazine reports, “…the intruders were able to glean the AP's Twitter login credentials thanks to a spear phishing email that targeted some staffers just prior to the compromise. Victims were directed to a sign-in form and asked to enter the username and password for the account.”

This is by no means an isolated incident. Read Matt Luallen’s column for advice on training your people so they know when the hook is in the water.

Annual Salary Survey

Before the calendar turned, 2016 already had the makings of a pivotal year for manufacturing, and for the world.

There were the big events for the year, including the United States as Partner Country at Hannover Messe in April and the 2016 International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago in September. There's also the matter of the U.S. presidential elections in November, which promise to shape policy in manufacturing for years to come.

But the year started with global economic turmoil, as a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing triggered a worldwide stock hiccup that sent values plummeting. The continued plunge in world oil prices has resulted in a slowdown in exploration and, by extension, the manufacture of exploration equipment.